


Sick Day

by PreludeInZ



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fever, Flirting, Fluff, Sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 06:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3840034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/PreludeInZ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="http://sinuswave.tumblr.com/post/110091956939/omg-scout-behave">sinuswave</a>:</p><blockquote>
  <p>Omg Scout <em><strong>behave</strong></em>.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinuswave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuswave/gifts).



There was a protocol in place for sick days. Miss Pauling sent memos about it at the beginning of every flu season. Admittedly, the protocol was sort of stupid, because it required submitting a petition for time off a week in advance of when you expected to be sick, but the mercs did a demanding job for exorbitant pay, it was only natural that they be held to some sort of standard.

It was very difficult to hold Scout to any kind of standard, because he’d been hired only a few years out of high school, and hadn’t ever held any kind of serious job in the intervening years. Generally any citations he got for protocol regulations turned up again during team meetings. As paper airplanes. Stuck in her hair. She had finally discovered that this was all a ploy to get scolded by her in person, and it was hard to scold someone who just nodded and grinned the whole time, and blatantly enjoyed being yelled at, not listening to a word. Miss Pauling wasn’t sure why she kept trying.

Still, if you wanted to get anything across to him, really you had to do it in person, so she’d gotten herself up to Viaduct with her clipboard and her pretty purple peacoat, mittens and hat, and was knocking on the door of his room in the barracks.

And skipping work was kind of serious. She’d warned him about that before. Granted, Scout didn’t play hooky often, but if he was rooming with Pyro during a mission, the pair of them were incorrigible. She wasn’t sure who was the bad influence, out of the pair of them, but she would have put her money on Scout. Pyro was a sweetheart. She’d sent another memo around, trying to ensure that the pair of them got partnered with roommates who would keep them on shorter leashes, but inevitably they swapped and traded around until they wound up together.

No one answered the door the third time she knocked, not Scout and not Pyro. She tried the handle, was surprised when it gave. Hmm. Technically that was a breach of protocol, she made a quick note on her clipboard. Mann Co facilities were supposed to be secured by employees by not in use. She knocked on the door again, sticking her head inside. “Scout?”

No answer. She flicked the light on and blinked. The rooms were sparse and a little cramped, true, especially at Viaduct. But usually they at least had beds. Bunk beds, even. There was no reason to have all the pillows and blankets heaped in a pile on the floor, as close as possible to the radiator in the corner of the room. Probably that was a fire hazard and–oh. There was a shuffle and a yawn and a faint sort of whimper of protest, as the little nest rearranged itself and Scout sat up, bleary-eyed and sniffling a little. “Ow, what, jeez. Turn the light  _off_ , Pyro, friggin’ quit it. My head’s gonna explode, ain’t even kidding, man. C'mon.”

“It’s not Pyro,” Miss Pauling announced, arching an eyebrow at him. “You, um. You weren’t at work today.”

“S'cuz I got pneumonia or somethin’. Sorry. Pyro was s'posed to say. Prob'ly I’m dying. S'gonna be awful tragic. Write my ma, would you? Tell her it was ‘cuz of saving a bus full of orphans or somethin’ though, an’ not 'cuz I got stupid pneumonia.”

“You don’t have pneumonia,” she chided, and came into the room, crouching down on the floor to get a proper look at him. Well. Maybe he did, actually. Still, she wouldn’t have put it past him to be faking. “ _Probably_  you don’t have pneumonia. Anyway, you’re supposed to call in sick.”

The hacking cough that answered this was convincing, even if she was still suspicious. “M'sorry. I’m gonna be sick tomorrow, too, though, an’ probably also the day after an’ for s'long as it takes me to finish dying the rest of the way. Tell Pyro he can have my stuff, 'cept actually screw that guy, 'cuz he said he was gonna go find some aspirin or something an’ that was an’ hour ago an’ he ain’t back, so I think probably he’s off makin’ snow angels again or somethin’. D'you want my stuff?”

Miss Pauling rolled her eyes. “You’re not dying. Look, why don’t you go see Medic?”

“Tried. Day b'fore yesterday. Says s'just a cold, shows what he even knows, s'goddamn quack.”

“He’s a medical professional, if he says it’s just a cold, it’s just a cold. You probably don’t even have a–” Except he  _did_  have a fever, and when she pressed her palm against his cheek she was startled. “Oh my god, Scout, you’re  _hot_.”

This at least got him to grin, and she realized he hadn’t until now. No grin when he saw her, no flirting, no comment on how she looked nice today. Oops. That probably should have been her first clue. Well, and the glassy eyes and the cough and the absence from work and the shivering she hadn’t noticed before now, chilled and shaking and curled up in all of the blankets in front of the radiator, in spite of the fact that he was burning up. “Yeah, I hear that all the time. ’m glad  _you_ think so. You’re pretty cute, too. Hey, so since I’m dyin’ an’ all, d'you maybe wanna go out with me sometime? Soon?” This solicitation was interrupted by another fit of vicious coughing. “Last chance,” he added, once he got his breath back.

“You’re not going anywhere but bed. And you’re not dying.” Miss Pauling decided abruptly, putting her hand against his forehead again and wincing. “ _This_  is why I try to get you not to room with Pyro, neither of you have any damn sense. You should’ve talked to Medic this morning.”

“Ain’t my fault,” he protested, after she’d bullied and coaxed and cajoled him into abandoning the radiator–really it was terribly chilly in here, she still had her jacket on and hadn’t quite realized–and burrowed under the blankets on the bottom bunk. “I got a ma back home, I ain’t ever been by myself with no one checkin’ in. An’ I’m  _not_ roomin’ with Pyro, he’s stuck with Engie an’ I’m by myself, 'cuz there’s nine of us an’ usually it’s Sniper likes t'be on his own, 'cept everybody gets shuffled around sometimes an’ I end up bein’ extra. Anyway Pyro’s got plenty of sense, more'n me. I ain’t got the sense t'know I oughta not gone to work _yesterday_ , made the damn cold worse.” And then, a little belligerently, pulling the blankets over his head, “An’ I  _am_  dyin’, or anyway my head hurts an’ my throat hurts an’ my face is all jacked up, I’m tired an’ I’m freezing, an’ I’m lonely and  _bored,_  so anyway I  _wish_ I was dead.”

Oh. Oops. And here she didn’t think anybody read her memos. “Well.” Oh, darn it. Why’d he have to go and be so pathetic. Miss Pauling softened her tone slightly. “Look, I’m sorry you’re sick, I didn’t mean to give you a hard time. Obviously you’re miserable, and I’m just sorry it got this far. Let me get you some tea and some tissues and see about getting Pyro to come keep you company. And you get some rest and then you go and see Medic. And you can have the rest of the week off. Okay?”

“Really?”

She smiled at the way his tone brightened. “Yes, really.”

“Tea with sugar?”

“Sure.”

“Pyro’s got a little radio he can get the game on sometimes, tell him to bring it?”

“Of course.”

“An’ tell Medic not to be mean, ain’t my fault I got pneumonia.”

“I’ll do my best.”

A hopeful pause. “An’ go out with me when I get better?”

“Don’t push it.”

“Aw.”


End file.
